


Rune Magic

by LynyrdLionheart



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 20:22:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17008575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LynyrdLionheart/pseuds/LynyrdLionheart
Summary: Yuuri's magic has always been special... he's just kind of always ignored that.  But an old acquaintance needs his help, and to save a friend, Yuuri is going to have to realize that the things he can do are extraordinary.





	Rune Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miaxnder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaxnder/gifts).



> So, I took the vampire AU you mentioned and just sort of ran with it? And it became this. I'm not entirely sure what this is, but there are vampires, shifters, and mages, all of which are fun, right?

Yuuri had been sixteen the first time he met a vampire.

              His parents had always explained that Hasetsu was a hot bed for supernatural activity.  It’s why the Katsukis had decided to settle there, generations before. There was just something about the small Japanese town that was magnetic for anyone not quite human. 

              For every simple mortal you met on Hasetu’s street, three more people were probably some sort of supernatural being.

              In the case of the Katsuki’s, they were witches.  Hiroko’s food made whoever ate it feel at home and at peace.  Meanwhile, the work Toshiya did with the hot springs sped up healing and instilled a general sense of wellbeing.  Yuuri’s remembered his childhood being one filled with peace, thanks to his parents.

              Peace – and magic.

              Like the time he was sixteen, and he met a vampire for the first time.

              The very first experience Yuuri had with vampires was when he was thirteen, and he and Yuuko managed to watch _Interview With A Vampire_ while hidden away from her parents.  The subtitles had been horrible, and Yuuri’s English hadn’t been so great at the time, so he had wound up being very confused as to what was happening.

              He’d also had his young gay awakening thanks to Tom Cruise as Lestat.

              Thanks to the movie, he had created somewhat of a picture in his mind, of what a vampire would look and act like.  It was all debonair charm and well dressed.

              Yakov Feltsman was neither of those.

              Yuuri had always imagined that all vampires must be eternally young and attractive, but Yakov was older, with greying hair that left the top of his head bare.  He kept it covered by a hat whenever he wasn’t in the Onsen, but Yuuri didn’t see him outside that often. 

              “We will not burn up in the sun instantly,” Yakov told him, in a voice with an accent so heavy that it had taken Yuuri nearly three days before he could clearly understand him.  “But we are sensitive to.  And no one likes to be weak, young Yura.”

              Yakov had taken a liking to Yuuri almost immediately upon arriving.  At first, it had confused Yuuri… until he had finished strengthening the protection runes he had created just for the Onsen, and found Yakov watching him. 

              “That is a powerful ability you have,” he commented.  “Who taught you?”

              Yuuri gave had given a non-committal shrug, and just hummed.  He knew his powers weren’t like his parents, made for comforting their guests, or even like Mari’s, who could make illusions out of smoke.  Runes were a dying art, one that had to be studied extensively.  Or so it was said.

              Yuuri had never studied runes at all.  He had simply picked up a crayon when he was a child and begun to draw.  And his drawing had had power.

              “You’re a smart boy, Yura,” Yakov stated, when it had become clear that Yuuri wouldn’t be giving him an answer. His voice was always gruff, but in that moment it had been approving as well.  It had made Yuuri preen, just a little bit, because he _liked_ Yakov, wanted the older man to think he was clever and talented.  “Someday, when you decide you want to see what you can do with that ability, you remember me, yes?”

              He had given Yuuri a business card then, with his name written in both Russian letters and English, as well as several numbers.

              He had never called any of those numbers, but Yakov had been the one to put the thought of leaving Hasetsu into Yuuri’s mind.  He had never considered such an option before – Hasetsu was home, Hasetsu was safe – but once Yakov planted it, it began to take root. 

              He may not have called any of those numbers, but he _did_ leave Hasetsu. 

              And eventually, he did see Yakov again.

\---

              The tattoo parlour had been Phichit’s brain child.  Of course it had been, because Yuuri would have never come up with such an idea himself. 

              It had been on Yuuri’s twenty-first birthday, when he had gotten them a bottle of rye whiskey that they had decided to drink straight up for some reason Yuuri could no longer remember.  They had sat on the floor of their apartment, taking shots that burned their throat, and with each one they talked about the future.

              When Yuuri had left Hasetsu at eighteen, he really hadn’t had a destination in mind.  He’d been rather nomadic, for two years, making money by exchanging runes.  But somewhere along the way, people had started to hear of him, and they knew that he didn’t belong to a coven.  That was when the attacks had begun.

              And that was how he had met Phichit and Ciao Ciao.

              Both of them were elemental mages. Ciao Ciao – Celestino Cialdini – was a master.  Phichit, on the other hand, was still just an apprentice.  But they had gotten Yuuri out a potential bind with some of the Fae, who had thought that Yuuri would make a wonderful addition to their Queen’s menagerie. 

              It had been the two mages who had explained to Yuuri about covens.  Japan didn’t really have covens, not like the western world did.  They had hot spots, like Hasetsu, that attracted the supernatural, and those that wound up there simply created a community.

              Covens, on the other hand, could exist anywhere, and they created bonds that tied them to each other.

              Yuuri hadn’t been sold on the idea immediately, but Ciao Ciao and Phichit had still let him accompany them back to Detroit, in the U.S.A., where their coven was centered.  It had seemed like an odd place, with none of Hasetsu’s supernatural magnetism.  But Yuuri had found himself developing ties in the city, and by the time his twentieth birthday rolled around, he had decided to make the coven his home.

              That was how he became Phichit’s roommate.  And how he came to find himself talking to Phichit about the future while they drank really terrible rye whiskey.

              “A tattoo parlour!” Phichit hiccupped, leaning a little too far over, so that he fell into Yuuri’s lap.  Yuuri stared down at him, and Phichit stared back up and grinned.

              “What?” Yuuri finally asked, wondering if he was so drunk that he simply couldn’t follow his friend’s thought process, or if Phichit truly wasn’t making sense.

              “Your future, Yuuri!  You should open a tattoo parlour!  For the magical!  Runes that are built right into the body.  People’d pay a fortune.”

              Yuuri could make his runes pretty; it was one of his specialties.  When he had been learning to use his magic, he had simply liked adding the little flourishes onto them.  They had made him proud of his work, and in turn that pride had made his magic more powerful.  Later, he had realized that people would pay more for a spell that blended in flawlessly with their décor, and his runes, each created for their specific purpose, fit the bill perfectly.

              Yuuri had never in his life created two that were identical.

              “A tattoo parlor,” he mused, because drunk and struggling to sit upright, it had seemed like the most brilliant idea in the world.  “Yeah! I could do that!”

              Phichit had, of course, recorded his agreement.  Because sober Yuuri didn’t think it was nearly as brilliant of a plan as drunk Yuuri had, and Phichit required proof that he had, at one point, agreed.  Yuuri didn’t think that agreements forged under the influence of alcohol should count, but Phichit had gone to Celestino, who had actually _agreed_ that it was a good idea, and somehow, two years later, Yuuri was once more drinking rye whiskey – this time mixed with Sprite, because he had learned his lessons – celebrating not only his birthday, but six months of business, and the first month where he was finally in the black.

              That wasn’t actually supposed to happen until the year mark, but Phichit had said Yuuri was being too safe with his projections and it turned out that, once again, he was right.

              Of course, Phichit still wasn’t legally allowed to drink, and Guang-Hong and Leo were even younger than him, so they still sat in the den of the apartment that Yuuri and Phichit still shared – but it was a long way from Yuuri’s twenty-first birthday, when he’d had no idea how he was going to contribute to the coven.

              He’d handed over his first repayment on the lone that they had extended him just that morning, and Yuuri honestly wasn’t sure who had been more proud; him, or Celestino.

              “Maybe I should get you to make me a tattoo,” Guang-Hong slurred, starting to tilt sideways into Leo.  The other boy carefully pushed him back upright with a fond smile.  He’d had just as much to drink, but as a werewolf, Leo’s alcohol tolerance beat all of the rest of them combined. 

              “Maybe you should slow down,” Yuuri replied, carefully sliding the bottle out of Guang-Hong’s reach.  The last thing he needed was to be reported for feeding teenagers alcohol, not when he was finally able to call himself a successful businessman.

              Sort of.  Yuuri still wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t all some twisted fluke, and that in a couple more months everyone would realize he was a joke and he’d lose all the business he had lined up, going out for the next ninety days.

              “You’re too young, Guang-Hong,” Leo informed him, snatching the younger man’s drink and finishing it himself.  He turned a grin at Yuuri that was all sharp teeth and a wicked glint in his eyes.  “ _Me_ , on the other hand… what do you say, Yuuri?  Have anything in your arsenal that could help a werewolf?  Rumor is you can make it so the shift doesn’t hurt.”

              “I can,” Yuuri admitted slowly.  “But most wolves wouldn’t want to be tattooed by me.  Or at all.  The ink has to be mixed with wolfsbane, if you want it to last through your shifts.”

              Leo winced slightly, because everyone knew that wolfsbane burned werewolves like it was no one’s business.  Yuuri had tattooed a couple in the past, though, and they said that, when compared to the pain of the shift, the slight burn of the miniscule amount of wolf’s bane was nothing.  They just hadn’t really been able to convince the rest of their packs of that.  Besides, most packs didn’t tend to stay around Detroit for too long, lest they outlast their welcome with the coven.  

              Leo was allowed to stick around, because he had shown up with Guang-Hong, a talented healer, and had no pack.  Instead of seeking one out once his friend was safe, he had stuck around and become part of the coven instead. 

              “Might be worth it, though,” Leo mused, pushing up the sleeve of his t-shirt and contemplating his bicep.  “I bet you could make me something badass.”

              “I was think a butterfly, actually,” Yuuri deadpanned.  Phichit howled, and Guang-Hong giggled, and would have tilted over, if Yuuri hadn’t reached over to straighten him.  Leo just let out a huff and rolled his eyes.  He was quite possibly the most laidback shifter Yuuri had ever met.  Then again, he couldn’t say that he had interacted with a whole lot of them.

              His best comparison was Yuri Plistesky, who he had met on a job in Russia.  The kid had barely been twelve, a tiger shifter, and had followed Yuuri around for three months, before Yuuri had managed to find his grandfather and return him.  He still got monthly e-mails from Nikolai, updating him on how they were.

              The thought made Yuuri frown a little, because he hadn’t heard from Nikolai in at least six weeks.  That didn’t happen often.

              Phichit said something to Leo that had the wolf pouncing on him, and Yuuri returned his attention to his friends and their party.  He would worry about Yuri and Nikolai later.  Tonight was about celebrating.

\---

              Yuuri’s store was relatively small, and he relied heavily on word of mouth to gain customers.  But when you specialized in magical tattoos, advertising the store to all and sundry didn’t necessarily bring in the customers that were desired.  Besides, the price tag that came with his art would have made anyone who didn’t know their true value turn on their heel and walk right back out of the shop.

              He was working on Sara Crispino, her brother, Michele, hovering nearby, when he heard the bell in the front ring.  He heard Minami greet whoever it was brightly, and went back to focusing on his art.  He had hired Minami because he recognized in him a magic similar to the one his parents had – an empathic ability to put people at ease.  Plus, the boy had all but begged to work for him, with hero worshipping stars in his eyes, and Yuuri had kind of given in because if Minami was dedicated to doing a good job out front, he wouldn’t try to sneak back into the work room to look at Yuuri with those _eyes_.

              “Why are you so close to her?  Do not be so close to her!” Michele demanded, and Yuuri carefully pulled back and gave Sara a quick look. 

              “Mickey, stop it,” she ordered.  “You know as well as I do that Yuuri needs to be that close in order to make the tattoo perfect.  Do you want me to have less than what you have?”

              Michele had actually been the one to bring Sara to Yuuri, after getting several tattoos of his own done.  The Crispino twins were weather mages and the forces they worked with could be incredibly unpredictable.  Normally, they had to perform their spells from within circles of magical safety, but Yuuri had realized that he could create protection runes intricate enough to replace those circles after having the chance to study one of Michele’s.

              After testing that it worked, Michele had immediately begged Yuuri to create one for his precious sister as well.  Yuuri had agreed, not realizing exactly how protective Michele was. 

              He sort of regretted his life choices now.

              “No,” Michele murmured, a hint of a pout on his lips.

              “You know I take my job seriously, Michele,” Yuuri added, carefully applying needle to skin once more.  It had taken him some time, to get used to drawing on skin with the ink gun, instead of paper with a pen or charcoal.  But once he had, his tattoos had come to life in ways even his previous runes hadn’t.  “I’m hardly going to make a move mid-tattoo.”

              “But you want to make a move?” Michele demanded, and Yuuri could tell from his voice that he was prepared for another rant.

              “I don’t think I’m quite Yuuri’s type, Mickey,” Sara hissed, interrupting before the next rant could get started.  “I think _you’re_ probably more his type.”

              Yuuri didn’t respond.  On a purely physical level, they were _both_ his type, but if believing he was gay would make Michele back off, Yuuri was hardly going to argue.  Besides, physically was one thing, but Yuuri didn’t feel like stepping into that co-dependent mine shaft for either of the twins.

              “Uh, Yuuri?” Minami peeked into the room, which was incredibly uncharacteristic.  He knew better than to interrupt while Yuuri was at work.  Even more unusual was the nervous, almost frightened look on his face.  “You… I… you need to talk to these customers, I think.”

              Yuuri paused for a moment, to look at Minami with a frown.  The boy continued to look nervous, shooting quick looks over his shoulder.  He glanced down at Sara’s tattoo.  It was almost done, just needed a bit more work on shading.

              “Two minutes,” he determined.  “And then I’ll be out.”

              Minami gave a sharp nod and, after a moment’s hesitation, retreated.

              “If you need to finish later-” Sara began, but Yuuri cut her off with a sharp shake of his head.

              “The magic is more powerful if it can be done in one go.  Two minutes. Just stay still.”

              Exactly one minute and fifty-six seconds later, Yuuri pulled back and surveyed his work, feeling pleased with the end result.  He might have joked with Leo about a butterfly tattoo on the night of his birthday, but on Sara, it really worked.  And unless someone knew what to look for, they would never be able to find the runes carefully weaved into the intricate wings of the delicate creature.

              “Yuuri,” Sara murmured, after she sat up and looked at the finished product.  It was just below her ribs, on her side, with the wings spread.  She dropped her shirt and turned to throw her arms around his neck.  “It’s beautiful.  I love it!”

              “Even more important, it means you’ll be able to use your magic whenever you need,” Yuuri added, giving her a quick hug back.  “You won’t be tied to protection circles.  Did Mickey explain how to take care of it?”

              Sara nodded, and accepted the materials Yuuri gave her.  She lifted her shirt once more, so he could cover it with lotion and gauze.

              “Keep it clean, keep it moisturized.  Come back in about six weeks, and we’ll see if it needs any touch ups. Did you want to go out the back door?”

              Sara looked confused at the question, but Michele was eyeing the door to the store front with suspicion.

              “You can feel it too?” Yuuri asked him, and he nodded sharply.  Sara looked between them, and then cocked her head, her spine stiffening almost immediately.

              “What’s out there?” she asked.

              “Something powerful,” Yuuri said.  “Come on, I’ll let you out the back.”

              “We are not cowards,” Michele stated, pinning him with a sharp look.

              “I know,” Yuuri replied patiently.  “But the runes I have on this place protect me and Minami.  Not all my customers.  We’ll be safe.  Sneaking you guys out the back means you will as well.”

              It took another five minutes, but Yuuri managed to finally usher the Crispino siblings out the back, and then enter the storefront.  Minami was all but cowering behind the front desk while pretending not to be, and Yuuri tapped his shoulder, handing him the statement to be added onto the Crispino’s account.  He usually demanded half payment for the design, and full payment on completion, but Michele had been a good customer, and he knew the twins were good for the bill.  Minami looked relieved to have something to do, and Yuuri turned his attention to the others in the store.

              There were three of them.  One was a tall blonde with moss green eyes and incredibly long, dark lashes.  When he saw he had Yuuri’s attention, he gave a wink and smile that oozed sex appeal and made Yuuri blush and turn his attention to the second man.

              The mostly beautiful man Yuuri had ever seen.

              His silver hair was cut short in the back, but left longer in the front, so it covered one of his eyes.  The other was a remarkably pure shade of blue.  He was just slightly shorter than the other man, and incredibly pale.  He cocked his head when he met Yuuri’s gaze, as though seeing some particularly curious creature, and Yuuri found that he couldn’t look away.

              Not until the final man cleared his throat, making Yuuri tear his gaze away from the beautiful man, to look into a face that he recognized immediately.

              “Katsuki Yuuri,” said Yakov Feltsman, not looking a day older than when they had met in Hasetsu and still wearing what Yuuri was pretty sure was the same hat as well, “it has been a long time.  You’ve grown.”

\---

              Minami hadn’t wanted to leave, clearly nervous about leaving his beloved boss alone with three vampires.  But Yuuri had a steal spine when it was required, and Minami was pre-possessed to want to please him.  So the boy had finally agreed to leave and get them both some lunch.  Once he had left, Yuuri had turned the sign in the small window to _Closed_ , checked that he didn’t have any other appointments until after lunch, and then led Yakov and his two companions into the small office that made up the third and final room in the store (not counting a small bathroom tucked into the back).

              He sat behind his desk, while Yakov took the other chair across from him.  His two companions took up positions on either side of the doorway.  Yuuri didn’t want to look at the beautiful silver haired man for too long, lest he get distracted again, but a quick survey of the blonde said that he was also a vampire like Yakov, leaving Yuuri to assume the beautiful man was as well.

              “This is a quaint little store,” commented the blonde idly, giving Yuuri a slow, seductive grin.  “ _Cute_.”

              “Try to attack me while you’re in it,” Yuuri replied in the perfectly polite and pleasant voice he had learned from his mother.  It was the one she used to deal with particularly _unpleasant_ customers.  “I’m sure you’ll still think it’s cute then.”

              “Christope, don’t,” Yakov ordered, not bothering to look back at the blonde.  Christophe looked a little startled, and then a lot petulant. “I had hoped when you decided to leave Hasetsu, you would use that card I gave you.  I never quite expected to find out that Cialdini had managed to lure you into his coven instead.”

              “His apprentice is my roommate,” Yuuri replied.  “It made sense to join the coven when I was living with a member. Did you… does Celestino know you’re here?”

              It was good manners, Yuuri knew, to report to a coven leader when entering their territory.  Especially if in a group consisting of multiple people.  When Yuuri had first met Yakov, he had kept his powers confined; that wasn’t the case now.  He hadn’t realized how powerful the older man was, and unless Yuuri was mistaken, his companions weren’t exactly slouches either.

              “I didn’t come to meet with Celestino Cialdini,” Yakove replied, his voice gruff.  “I wouldn’t have guessed you would run a tattoo parlor, Yura.  Do your parents know?”

              Yuuri doubted that Yakov really wanted to make small talk, but he had been friendly enough with his parents all those years ago.  So Yuuri gave a nod, and waited for the vampire to get to his point.  Realizing that was all the answer he would get, Yakov sighed and leaned back in his chair. 

              “You’ve grown suspicious, Yura.  It will serve you well, but it makes an old man weary. I need your assistance.”

              “ _My_ assistance?” Yuuri blinked in surprise.  “You don’t seem like the tattoo type.”

              One of the men at the door snorted in laughter.  Yuuri glanced back quickly, only to see that it had been the beautiful one with the silver hair.  Their eyes met, and Yuuri found himself unable to breathe, or to look away.  He had pushed his hair back, leaving both of those impossibly blue eyes to Yuuri’s gaze.

              It might have been a second, or it could have been five minutes – Yuuri didn’t know – but the stare off was broken off when Yakov coughed lightly.  Yuuri forced his gaze back to the older vampire, and tried to ignore the flush he could feel creeping into his cheeks. At the door, the blond vampire said something to the other in a language Yuuri didn’t know – he thought it might have been French.  It sounded sort of like the language the Leroy coven had spoken, when they had visited seven months previous.

              “I’m not here for a tattoo,” Yakov agreed, and Yuuri felt his shoulders slump just slightly with relief that he wasn’t going to bring up Yuuri’s inattention.  “Though I’ll admit, it’s an ingenious way for you to use your powers. But I always knew you were clever, Yura.”

              Yuuri felt inordinately pleased at the praise.  Maybe it was because he still remembered the sixteen year old boy he had been, the one that had been intimidated but so very impressed with Yakov. It was that part of him that still kept the old business card tucked away in his wallet – a reminder of the first time anyone besides family had ever believed he could be bigger than Hasetsu.

              But Yakov was right – Yuuri was _clever_.  He also knew when someone was flattering him.

              “As much as I like the compliments, I’m not a free agent, Yakov.  I joined Celestino’s coven.  There was a ceremony.  We had cake.”

              It had been very good cake, too, and Yuuri had been allowed to take all the leftovers home.  It had resulted in a vodka and cake after party that he still couldn’t fully remember. 

              “Will you not even hear us out?” It was the beautiful man who spoke, instead of Yakov, and Yuuri found himself once more entranced with those beautiful blue eyes, and unable to look away.  “We have come a long way to see you.  Yakov remembers you fondly, as a kind boy.  Can you not hear what he has to say?”

              “Vitya,” Yakov muttered, shooting the beautiful man, Vitya, a dark look.  Viktor gave him a quick glance, and the smallest bow of his head, but as soon as Yakov looked away, he met Yuuri’s eyes once more.

              Yuuri wondered if he should turned the heat down.  It was feeling a little warm with four of them tucked away in his office.

              “I… uh…” Yuuri had always been a little bit anxious, but he hadn’t felt this nervous and off-kilter since he had realized that his magic was truly something valuable, back when he was still eighteen and coven-less.

              _No one else can do this_.  He could still remember Yuri’s stubborn words, spat out in a foul mood, because Yuri had always been in a foul mood.  It had been part of his charm.  _If they pay you, it’s clearly valuable. Just accept that you’re actually not terrible at this._

He should probably be embarrassed, that it had been a twelve year old who had given him the confidence boost he needed.  But he couldn’t be upset when all of his memories of the kid were just filled with so much… contentment.  Sometimes, he wished he had stayed with them for more than just a month.  He had known that Nikolai’s offer hadn’t had an end date, but the old tiger shifter was firmly entrenched in Moscow, and Yuuri had still had so much wanderlust within him.

              He was reminded that he still hadn’t heard from the Plisetsky’s, and it made a nervous ball form in his stomach.

              “I’ll listen,” Yuuri said at last.  “But I can’t make any promises, Yakov.  My hands are tied – I need Celestino’s permission to help anyone outside the coven.”

              And a contract would have to be written up, in which the coven received a certain percentage of the fee.  Nothing in their world could be done for free, after all – not unless it was done within the coven.

              “Members of our coven have gone missing,” Yakov said quickly, as though worried Yuuri might change his mind.  “So… you may understand, why we’re not keen to let just anyone know.”

              Yuuri was.  Covens – no matter the type of supernatural beings they were made up of – were proud, possessive, secretive things.  They didn’t broadcast their weaknesses to just anybody.  That Yakov was even in Yuuri’s office was a sign that he was truly desperate.

              “I don’t know how you think I’ll be able to help,” Yuuri admitted slowly.  “I’m a Rune Mage.  I mean, I could maybe create a circle for finding lost things, but so could a dozen others.  There are books filled with Rune circles.”

              And anyone with magic could draw and use them – perhaps not as well as a Rune Mage, but circles for finding lost things were one of the easiest circles to create. 

              “There are.  I can list you the titles of six books off the top of my head, all of them back in my home in St. Petersburg,” Yakov agreed.  “And I can list a dozen rune circles that can be created to block all them… also back in my home.  What I cannot do, is create or block a circle made by Katsuki Yuuri.  It’s been tried, did you know?  Since this young Japanese mage appeared from nowhere, others have been trying to recreate his circles, or to unmake them.  None have succeeded.”

              Yuuri blinked, and stared blankly at Yakov. 

              “That’s stupid,” he said at last.  “No one’s even asked me how to unmake one of my circles.”

              If they had, Yuuri would have been able to tell them.  He had several notebooks filled with his favorite spells, and their counters.  He probably would have made people pay for the information, but since no one had asked he’d figured they’d already figured it out.  Or that no one had bothered to try, because Yuuri was just Yuuri, after all.

              Good at what he did, but so were a dozen other Rune Mages.  His only edge over the competition was his creativity, and a lot of the Old Ones didn’t particularly appreciate that in a young mage.  More than once he’d been called an upstart.

              “They can be unmade?” asked Christophe, quirking his head curiously.

              “Of course they can be unmade,” Yuuri replied with a huff, leaning back in his chair.  “All runes can be unmade. It’s not that difficult.”

              Yuuri had never found it particularly difficult.  Admittedly, making the runes came to him easier… but unmaking them just took a bit of thought and some common sense. 

              Okay, maybe he added a couple of flourishes that would make his runes a little tougher, but _still_.  Why had no one ever thought to just _ask_ him?

              “That is interesting,” Yakov stated, holding a hand up to keep Christophe from saying any more.  “But my point stands.  Your runes, your _circles_ , are the most powerful I have seen.  And I have seen many runes, Yura.  None of the mages I have spoken to have been able to find Yuri or Nikolai.  You are our last best hope.”

              Yuuri froze at Yakov’s words. 

              _“You need to realize you’re not completely useless! God, charge them your worth!”_

_“I’m still new, Yurochka.  There’s a going rate for new.”_

_“God, you’re dumb.  There’s a going rate for special, too!”_

How many times had Yuri yelled at him during those months they were together?  He existed in a state of permanent anger, and after a time it had grown on Yuuri.  He had often wondered, if Mari felt the same mix of fondness and exasperation for him, as he had felt for the young tiger shifter.

              “Do you mean Yuri and Nikolai Plisetsky?” Yuuri asked, his lips feeling numb, as though they couldn’t quite form the words right.  “How?”

              It was Vitya, the beautiful man, who answered.

              “You know them?” he asked, stepping up so he was directly at Yakov’s back.

              “I… yes… I…” Panic was a wild thing that rose in Yuuri’s throat, and he closed his eyes, concentrating on his breathing, and slowing it down.  “I’ll talk to Celestino.  I’ll help you.”

              Panic was replaced by guilt.  He should have tried to contact Nikolai, back when he first thought it had been too long. 

              Now he might be too late.

\---

              “Vampires are a dangerous group.”

              Yuuri wasn’t stupid, which Celestino should realize.  Yet here he was, declaring the world’s most obvious fact, as though it were news to Yuuri.

              “They need help,” Yuuri said after a long moment, where he waited for Celestino to expand more on his statement.  When it became clear he wasn’t, Yuuri figured he was waiting for an explanation.  “I can help them.  They’ll pay me.”

              Of course, Yuuri would have done this for free.  His time with Yuri and Nikolai may have been short, but Mari used to always say that Yuuri had the tendency to imprint on people and then never let them go.  He had imprinted on the Plisetskys; they were his family for now.

              Yet he hesitated to tell Celestino that, just as he had hesitated to tell Yakov and his companions more than the bare minimum, and that only because they had seen his far too honest reaction – one he couldn’t simply write off as nothing.

              “Yakov should know better than to approach one of my people without coming to me first,” Celestino muttered darkly; that was the other thing – it turned out the two coven leaders weren’t exactly strangers to each other.  Their relationship was politely strained and entirely distant with all the distrust that only a vampire and a mage could carry for each other.  “I dislike the way he did this, Yuuri.  I’m inclined to make you decline based off that alone.”

              _Then I’ll leave the coven_.  It was on the tip of his tongue to say it, but he held off for the moment. Yuuri would be the first to admit that he didn’t understand the finer points of coven life, but he’d had a steep learning curve, and the very first lesson he had taken to heart was to never tip your hand too soon. 

              “One of the missing is a boy,” he said instead.  “Younger than Guang-Hong, even.  Celestino… Yakov says at least half a dozen mages have tried and failed to scry for them.  We can’t leave a kid helpless like that.”

              One of the first things Yuuri had learned about the head of the Detroit coven, was that underneath his attempt at a tough exterior, he was a bleeding heart.  If Celestino viewed someone as weaker than him, he would help them without fail.

              Yuri would hate to be thought of as weak… but Yuuri had no intentions of mentioning it to him.

              Celestino sighed heavily, and Yuuri thought he might call him on the blatant manipulation.  But after one hard look, and another sigh, he slumped in his chair.

              “Is this where you say you’ll leave the coven if I don’t grant my blessing?”         

              Yuuri startled at that, and Celestino gave him another one of those looks.

              “Do you think that I did no looking into you or your history before I invited you to join, Yuuri Katsuki?  Admittedly, your powers would have made it tempting no matter what I found, but I still need to know what to expect.  Yuri Plistesky.  You spent several months travelling with him, and then more living with him and his grandfather.  It was the longest you stayed in one place, until you decided to settle here.  People noticed, and the supernatural community may seem wide spread, but it’s really breathtakingly small.”

              Yuuri hunched his shoulders and gave Celestino what he hoped was an innocent grin.  The older man’s response was to give out a bark of laughter.

              “You will take Phichit,” he said at last.  “I want someone I trust at your back when you walk into unknown territory.  You don’t realize what a prize you are, Yuuri, or the lengths others would go to, in order to lure you away.”

              “I made my vows here,” Yuuri replied, feeling vaguely insulted at the thought that he would be so easily swayed to join with another.  “I take them seriously.”

              “I know you do, Yuuri.  I also know that you’ve a wanderlust in your heart.  When I invited you here, it was with the hope that you would eventually settle, and the expectation that someday you would leave again, to chase whatever it is you’re searching for.  I don’t think you’ve found it yet, have you?”

              He had been asked over the years, why he had wandered for so long.  Why, even now that he was in Detroit, he never quite completely settled.  Instead of getting his belongings shipped from Hasetsu, he had gone to a rebate store to get everything he would need secondhand.  He never bothered to getting a dresser, and instead still lived out of his suitcase. 

              Usually, members of the supernatural world were born into a coven, and stayed within it their whole lives.  Even in Hasetsu, where they weren’t officially a coven, people tended to settle, become part of the community, and then stay… and then their children stayed.  Like was drawn to like, after all.

              But Yuuri had never felt that need to settle.  In fact, he’d hesitated long and hard before opening his store, because it meant settling.

              But he’d really needed the money, and Phichit had looked so keen, and so he had done it.

              “You make it sound like I’m going with Yakov to decide if Russia’s a good fit,” Yuuri said, trying to inject enough humor in his voice to break the tension of the room.  “I’m taking a job.  And helping old friends.  Then I’ll come back.  I’m booked out for months, after all.  I can hardly just leave my shop.”

              Celestino said nothing, but his silence said more than words ever could.  Yuuri left him with his permission to go to Russia, and a feeling in his gut that said the world was about to change.

\---

              Viktor Nikiforov was quite young by vampire standards, having only lived fifty-five years.  It meant it was surprising, that he was chosen to accompany the coven leader to Detroit.  Usually such a job would only go to those with a century or two under their belt.  But Viktor had long ago proven himself to be a fighter, and Yakov was the one that turned him, and with that came a certain level of loyalty.

              Besides, it was no secret that Viktor enjoyed seeing the world.  Yakov didn’t like to lose his people to other covens, or the rare case of wanderlust, so when one showed an inclination towards travel, he did the best he could to feed it… within the abilities of coven life.

              Viktor had never been to Detroit before this. Upon first arriving, he had told Chris that he had no intentions of ever coming back again.

              That was before he was introduced to Yuuri Katsuki… or Katsuki Yuuri, as Yakov had called them when he had declared he knew someone that could help find the Plisteskys.

              Yuuri was… _something_.

              He was shy and unassuming – and members of the supernatural community travelled oceans and continents, just to have one of his runes marked onto their skin.  He had apparently only been in the tattoo business for six months, and already Viktor had heard of a pair of shifters in Australia that had gotten into a fight, because one had managed to get a booking, and the other one wanted it.

              Mila had found the whole thing hysterical. 

              “Is the Rune Mage going to help us?”

              Viktor was cut off from his thoughts when Otabek joined him.  Otabek was even younger than Viktor – he had only been turned about a year previous.  But he was also one of the few people that Yuri Plistesky considered a friend, and they had all known that if they left the Kazakhstani, he would simply find his own way to follow them.  Otabek had been the one to find Yuri and Nikolai’s apartment torn apart, no sign of either shifter, and a scent trail no one recognized that was lost almost immediately outside the building.

              “He’s agreed to, but he needs Cialdini’s permission,” Viktor replied.  He had thought they should just kidnap the mage, and apologize later, but Yakov had been determined to give Yuuri the respect he claimed he deserved.

              Viktor couldn’t make claims about respect, or even fully comment on his powers… but he could say that while Yuuri might seem unassuming at first, given time to watch his face, it turned into something beautiful. 

              “Every moment he wastes on permission is another moment Yuri is gone.”

              Viktor didn’t respond, because a car pulled up outside the small townhouse they stood outside.  Yakov never stayed in hotels, particularly not in territory that wasn’t his own.  He didn’t trust other coven leaders, and probably with good reason.  After all, Yakov was nearly a thousand years old – a rare age, even for someone that was, supposedly, immortal.

              The door of the car opened, and Yuuri Katsuki stepped out.  He was accompanied by another, shorter man, this one with warm brown skin and black hair.  They retrieved bags out of the back of the car, and then it sped away as quickly as it had shown up.

              “Yuuri!” Viktor greeted, his voice warm.  Yuuri looked a little surprised, as though he hadn’t expected Viktor to know his name – as if half the supernatural world didn’t know who he was, and the other half hadn’t heard of him, even if they didn’t know what he looked like.  “You’re here quicker than I expected.”

              “Celestino was easy to convince,” Yurri replied carefully.  Viktor took his hand between both of his.  It was meant to be a greeting, but Viktor found that Yuuri’s palm was callused, but warm, and that he was loathe to release his hold on the other man.  They stood there, gazing at each other in what was probably a ridiculous manner, until Otabek gave a harsh cough.

              “Oh, yes.  Yuuri, this is Otabek Altin. He is Yura’s best friend.  Otabek, this Yuuri Katsuki.”

              “Otabek,” Yuuri repeated, his voice taking on a warmer tone as he removed his hand from Viktor’s grip to grasp the other vampire’s.  “I know the name.  Yuri… he writes about you.  Often. Nikolai too.”

              “You know them,” Otabek said.  Anyone that didn’t know him wouldn’t recognize the surprise in his expression, but Viktor was beginning to learn the other man’s little tells.  Had he forgotten to mention that Yuuri was familiar with the Plisetskys?

              Oops.

              “I do,” Yuuri agreed, though he didn’t expand on that any more than he had during their meeting that afternoon.  Instead he turned to the man that had accompanied him, motioned for him to step closer.  “This is Phichit Chulanot.  He’s an elemental mage, and Celestino thought he could be… helpful.”

              In other owrds, Celestino wasn’t sending his crown jewel into the heart of Russia alone, and he expected Chulanot to burn them alive, or turn them to living ice if they so much as looked as though they’d be keeping Yuuri away from Detroit.

              It was fair.  There were many covens that would love to do exactly that – steal Yuuri away for their use and fortunes.  Yakov probably would have been one of them, if it weren’t for the fact that he remembered Yuuri the boy so fondly.

              Yakov didn’t remember many people after such short meetings in general, and he never remembered them fondly.

              “It’s a pleasure, Mr. Chulanot,” Viktor said, shaking the younger man’s hand.  He kept his expression perfectly straight and polite, though he felt his lips curve into a smile when he met Yuuri’s gaze again.  “If you will come with me, we couldn’t get flights back to Russia until the morning, but there are rooms that you may use until then.  We don’t have much use for them.”

              “So it’s true then?” Phichit asked, and wasn’t it embarrassing, that his voice made Viktor give the smallest jolt of surprise, because he had already all but forgotten that anyone other than Yuuri was there?  “That vampires don’t sleep.”

              “We sleep,” Otabek interjected, and Viktor was almost jealous of his ability to appear so serious.  “Just not as often as humans.”

              “That would suck,” Yuuri stated, and the most lovely of flushes rode high on his cheeks when he realized that his words had earned him stares from both the vampires.  “I mean… I like sleep.”

              “A lot,” Phichit added helpfully.  “I don’t know how he runs a business with how much he likes sleep.”

              Yuuri muttered something, but it was too low for even a vampire to hear.  Phichit couldn’t have possibly heard it either, but he grinned at the other mage as though he had, a wide and bright thing that to most people was probably contagious, but that just made Yuuri roll his eyes.

              “I’d like to go over what you know,” Yuuri said as he followed Viktor into the house.  “About who saw Yuri and Nikolai last, enemies of your coven… my spells tend to work best when I’m specific with them.  It’s why the tattoos work so well.”

              And that was the reason why he was considered so powerful.  Rune magic was very old, and even those who were considered masters relied on what little had survived in the magic books to frame their powers.  That Yuuri could make his own, could make them _personalized_ , when any other Rune Mage could, at best, narrow their spells to a specific bloodline?

              There was a target on Yuuri’s back.  A back that Viktor thought he might grow rather fond of.  He would be sure to watch it.

\---

              It was cold. 

              Yuri had lived his whole life in Russia.  His tiger blood meant he ran warmer than a typical human.  For him to be cold, the situation had to be extreme. 

              They had taken Grandpa away, what felt like hours ago, and worry and hunger were warring over which could gnaw the greater hole in his stomach.  He didn’t know what these people wanted with them, but they kept taking Grandpa away, only to bring him back all bruised and bleeding.  Once he was healed, they would repeat the cycle.          

              Shifters healed fast, but they hadn’t been feeding them well.  The time it took Grandpa to heal kept getting longer, as did the period when he was unconscious or delirious upon returning to the cell.  It made Yuri scared, and that in turn pissed him off.

              He was fifteen.  He wasn’t some scared little twelve year old who needed to be protected anymore.  He should be able to help his grandpa.

              Someone had to have noticed they were missing by now.  Beka at the very least, or that pathetic old man, who looked at Yuri as though he were some amusing little entertainment to be enjoyed.  Viktor always seemed to be around; he would have reported their absence to Yakov right?

              Or Yuuri.  They hadn’t sent an email to Yuuri in weeks.  Would he know to contact Yakov?  They had joined the St. Petersburg coven after those months they had spent together, when supernatural poachers had decided they had an interest in tigers, and being alone had become dangerous.  Yuri couldn’t remember if they had told Katsudon about it, though. 

              The idiot would have worried, and felt guilty – because he _always_ felt guilty, even if he couldn’t control anything.  Yuri didn’t think they had mentioned anything, because they didn’t want Katsudon to worry or feel guilty.

              _He still felt cold_.

              The door opened, and Yuri had to turn his face away from the way the cell brightened.  He heard their captor come in, dragging something, and by the time Yuri’s eyes had adjusted, they had finished chaining Grandpa down again.  He slumped in a way that worried Yuri.

              “He is of no use,” said one of the men.  “We use the boy.  He’s the one who was more familiar anyway.”

              “Are we even sure our intel is correct?  If they know nothing, then we’ll have angered Yakov Feltsman and be no closer to the prize.”

              “It’s correct.  This source has never let us down.”

              They both turned, and Yuri found himself staring up at them.  They watched him too long, and he bared his teeth at them, felt them transform into fangs as he did so, claws ripping out of his fingernails.

              “The kitten might bite,” one of the men commented, his voice ripe with amusement.

              “He can try,” the other said, completely unimpressed.  He raised his hand up and back handed Yuri with a force that surprised him and made him see white.  He had a moment of shock, where he realized this one captor, at least, was a fellow shift.

              Then he was backhanded again, and this time the world went dark and he felt as though he was floating.

\---

              St. Petersburg was as lovely as Yuuri remembered, but he couldn’t find it in himself to truly admire the scenery. 

              He had gone over everything Yakov and his vampires knew at least twice more, once he had joined them in the townhouse in Detroit.  And the information they had was worrisomely lacking.

              “You are worried,” Viktor commented, from the seat he had claimed next to Yuuri in the limo that had picked them up at the airport.  It had been driven by a dark haired vampire that had been introduced as Georgi. 

              “Of course I’m worried,” Yuuri replied.  “You said they were being threatened by _poachers_.”

              Something both Nikolai and Yuri had neglected to mention.  Or had Yuuri just not given them the chance?  He tried to remember, to see if there was a time they had tried to push the e-mail conversations in that direction, and came up with nothing.

              “This is not poachers,” Yakov said gruffly, from where he sat on the other side of the limo with Chris and Otabek.  Phichit was squeezed in on Yuuri’s other side, as warm and comforting a presence as Viktor’s was _unsettling_ in so many ways that Yuuri didn’t have the time to explore.

              He had travelled across all the continents and witnessed magic that awed him, yet Yuuri couldn’t remember anyone _ever_ affecting him the way that Viktor did, and he didn’t understand it at all.

              “The poachers would not be this well protected,” Yakov continued.  “To be able to block all detection spells… they would require a Master Rune Mage.”

              “I know,” Yuuri replied, chewing on his lip.  “I’m worried I can’t help, honestly.  I’m not a master, I just have a unique quirk.  I don’t know that I’ll be powerful enough.”

              All four vampires stared at him, as though he were absolutely crazy.  Phichit, the traitor, just shrugged at them, as though in commiseration. 

              “He doesn’t get it,” the dirty traitor stated, as though that shrug weren’t enough.  “We tell him… but they raise them weird in Hasetsu.”

              “I’m the only person you’ve ever met from Hasetsu,” Yuuri grumbled darkly.

              “So my sample size is small.  It’s not my fault you never invite your family to Detroit.”

              “Their magic is hospitality based!  They don’t feel comfortable away from their inn!”

              Phichit grinned unrepentantly, and Yuuri just scoffed and settled back in his seat with crossed arms.

              “And none of that changes the fact that I’m not a master,” he muttered, internally wincing, because he probably sounded like a child.  But this was an old argument.

              Everyone thought the shiny, new magic was somehow incredibly powerful, but it was just _special_.  Special didn’t equal power.

              “Have you ever been tested for master status?” Viktor asked, and Yuuri gave a shaky breath, because he had leaned in, so that the question was asked close to his ear, the vampire’s breath surprisingly warm against his skin.

              “I tried.  When I was younger,” Yuuri replied.  Back when he had decided he had wanted to see the world, and figured that the master status would help with that.  “Obviously, I failed.”

              And still he had ventured into the world, the lone brave act that Yuuri had ever committed.  But his failure was still a heavy weight in his stomach when he remembered it. 

              Because Yuuri wasn’t very good with traditional Runes.  No matter how many times he tried to draw them textbook perfect, he just never could.  When he was younger, he hadn’t thought much of the fact that he always added those little flourishes, but on the master’s exam he’d learned that they equaled failure.

              Still, he’d returned to Hasetsu only to pack a bag, and then he had set off.  At first he tried to draw the Runes as they were meant to be… but then he had decided that was useless.  It never felt right, and his parents had always taught him that magic was an instinctual thing.

              If his instincts said the magic circles in the books were wrong, then they were wrong, and no exam would convince him otherwise.  Not when he had the wisdom of Katsuki Toshiya and Katsuki Hiroko on his side.

              “That doesn’t seem right,” Chris commented, leaning his chin on his fist and contemplating Yuuri.  “Everyone’s heard of you.  Runes like yours don’t make waves if they’re weak.”

              “It makes perfect sense,” Yakov muttered.  “Those idiots that make the exams expect every student to conform to expectations.  When they don’t, they don’t consider potential.  They just fail them.  It’s stupidity, and it’s why Rune Magic is going extinct.”

              “If it’s going extinct, then shouldn’t figuring out who’s behind this kidnapping be easy?” Phichit interjected.  “Just go through all the Rune Masters until you find the right one.”

              “We tried that,” Otabek said bluntly.  “It wasn’t any of the masters in Russia, and the situation is time sensitive.”

              “And there was talk of lodging a complaint with the Federation,” Chris added.  “ _Someone_ ” – here, he shot a look at Otabek who kept his straight face, but might have reddened a little – “got a little rough when one of the Rune mages wouldn’t talk fast enough.”

“In Beka’s defense, Mikhail was an ass and I would have probably punched him if I wasn’t beat to it,” Viktor cut in.  He glanced down at Yuuri, and his smile was so soft and warm that it felt as though it calmed the storm of panic that he could feel brewing inside of him.  “But ass or not, he wasn’t guilty.  We will find the one responsible together.”

              “Y-yeah,” Yuuri agreed, and Phichit’s snigger next to him made him realize how dazed and almost dreamy he sounded.  He cleared his throat and looked down at his lap, where he was twisting his hands together.  “I mean, of course we will.  That’s why you hired me.  To find the people who are doing this.”

              And to save the boy and the man that had, for a short while, given Yuuri the closest thing to home he’d had since Hasetsu.  Yuuri liked Detroit well enough, but would admit that not even Phichit was able to make him feel as comfortable as he’d felt with the Plisetskys.

              They were family, and Yuuri _needed_ them to be safe.  He couldn’t let himself get distracted by vampires, no matter how pretty their blue eyes were.

              _Vampires are dangerous._

Yuuri had never agreed with those words more.

              The heart of Yakov’s coven was what could only be considered a mansion on the outskirts of the city.  In Detroit, Celestino had office space in a building owned by the coven, and that was where official business was conducted.  Apparently nearly one thousand years was enough time for Yakov to consolidate enough wealth that he could afford to live a bit nicer.

              “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a place this nice in magazines,” Phichit muttered to Yuuri, who wondered if he should point out that muttering didn’t really help anything.  If Yuuri could hear his words, then so could the vampires.  As though to prove his thoughts right, Viktor’s shoulders shook ahead of them, as though he were silently laughing.  “I’m afraid to touch anything.”

              “Good,” Yuuri murmured back, his narrowed eyes remaining on Viktor.  “I’m pretty sure that vase back there is worth more than the both of us combined.”

              “That one is fake, actually,” Viktor commented over his shoulder, those blue eyes of his amused.  “Don’t mention it to Yakov, though.  It’s a sore point.”

              “A sore point that you’re _mentioning_!” Yakov barked back.  Viktor grinned unrepentantly, and gave the mages an easy shrug.

              “This is where the two of you will be staying,” Yakov stated, stopping by a doorway.  Phichit wasting no time in entering, but when Yuuri went to follow, Yakov placed a hand on his shoulder, halting him.  “I would like to get straight to work.  Will you come with me?”

              “Phich – catch!” Yuuri commanded, and Phichit turned just in time to receive an armful of Yuuri’s bag.  “Get us settled.  I’ll… be around.”

              The other vampires branched off as they headed down the hall, until only Yakov and Viktor remained to accompany Yuuri.  Yakov gave the younger vampire a sharp look, but Viktor just looked back innocently, which made Yakov scoff low.  He allowed Viktor to accompany them to their destination, however.

              That destination, it turned out, was an office decorated entirely in dark wood that suited Yakov well, so it didn’t surprise Yuuri when he took the solid wood seat behind it.  What did surprise him was when Viktor took one of the smaller seats on the other side, next to Yuuri, rather than a position at the door, or Yakov’s back.

              “You’re involving yourself when you haven’t been asked, Vitya,” Yakov grumbled after glaring at the other man for a few seconds.

              “You cannot expect to simply toss Yuuri out into the St. Petersburg community alone, Yakov.  Do you even speak the language?”

              It took Yuuri a moment to realize the question was addressed to him, and another moment of staring blankly at Viktor.

              “Yes,” he said at last, speaking in the very language in question.  “Yuri taught me.”

              That meant he had learned how to curse before he could say hello or good-bye, of course, but they had eventually gotten to those.  And Yuri had seemed so proud to be taken seriously enough to teach, even if he had been impatient and generally rude to begin with.

              “Still,” Viktor said, almost immediately on the heels of Yuuri’s answer.  “You are a guest in our city.  It would be rude if our coven didn’t supply you with the proper assistance.  We can’t be rude, Yakov.  What would Yuuri tell Cialdini?”

              “That we let him do his job,” Yakov replied somewhat wryly, before darting a look to Yuuri.  “However, Vitya isn’t entirely wrong.  It has been a few years, I know, but St. Petersburg has not forgotten you in your absence, and the Federation’s hold here isn’t as strong as it is in North America.  If you’ll allow it, Vitya will make sure you and Chulanot have safe passage and all the access you need to the city.”

              Viktor was a distraction; the effect he had on Yuuri had made itself obvious far too often, and they hadn’t even known each other for a full two days.  He should ask for Otabek’s assistance, given his connection to Yuri, or even Chris, who was flirtatious, but in a way that Yuuri could ignore, excepting the odd blush.  He should really ask for anyone _but_ Viktor.

              He didn’t.

              “We appreciate your help.”

              Viktor’s answering grin was brilliant, and Yuuri knew he was screwed, even as he didn’t regret it.

\---

            They had failed to mention that they had joined a coven, but Nikolai and Yuri _had_ told him that they had moved.  The new apartment was larger, and had far better security than the old one.  It was also coven owned, and Yakov personally vouched for every person on the security team.

              That just added to the mystery of what the hell could have happened to the Plisetskys.  The security guards that worked at this particular building were all shifters who had chosen coven life to that of a pack, much like Nikolai and Yuri had.  The guard on duty nodded at them, but otherwise let them by.

              “It’s just because I’m with you,” Viktor assured them as they waited for the elevator to reach the third floor.  “Yakov has told them that we have a specialist on the case, and they know not to interfere in coven business.”

              “There are cameras in here,” Phichit said, eyeing one of them thoughtfully.  “In the stairwells, too?”

              “Yes.  We were unable to find any interference with them the day that Yura and Kolya went missing.”

              As the elevator doors opened, Yuuri let Viktor and Phichit’s words simply wash off his mind.  He stalked down the hall, coming to a halt in front of apartment 323.  He looked at Viktor as the vampire joined him and held out his hand.

              “Key.”

              Viktor pressed it into Yuuri’s hand, and he let them into the apartment.

              “How did you know this was theirs?” Phichit asked, looking around curiously.  Yakov hadn’t allowed anyone to disturb the scene, and it was clear there had been a struggle.  A glass lamp had fallen off a table and was shattered on the floor, and the furniture was tipped over, the carpets torn up by claws.  The attackers, or the Plisetskys?

              Yuuri eyed the scene for a moment, then turned on his heel and walked down the hall.  He opened a door, and entered what appeared to be the master bedroom.  The bed was neatly made, the entire room undisturbed, unlike the living room.

              “Yuuri-”

              “I need to focus, Phich.”  Yuuri paused for a moment in the room, and closed his eyes.  After a moment he walked to the dresser and pulled open a drawer.  In a moment, he had a jewelry box open on his palm. 

              “What’s that?” Viktor asked, joining Yuuri.  He peeked over his shoulder, and Yuuri heard him give a surprised huff.  “Yura has a necklace exactly like that.  He never takes it off.”

              “They’re not identical,” Yuuri replied.  “The differences are subtle, but they’re there if you know what to look for.  Hold this for me.”

              Viktor accepted the necklace, and Yuuri stepped away, trying to put some distance between himself and the necklace.  Without a spell circle, he couldn’t find the necklaces if they were at any distance.  But within the apartment, he would be able to sense Yuri’s, just as he had Nikolai’s. 

              He sensed nothing.

              “You said Yuri always wears that necklace, right?” Yuuri asked, opening his eyes once more and glancing back at Viktor, whose head was cocked, surveying Yuuri curiously. 

              “Yes. He keeps it under his shirt, but he keeps it on a leather cord.  I’ve noticed it.  Yura wouldn’t tell me what it is, however.”

              Yuuri could hear the question in Viktor’s voice, and he lifted box with Nikolai’s necklace.

              “I had them made, before I left them.  They’re tracking runes, but the greater the distance, the more magic it takes to activate the spell. I needed to know that it wasn’t going to just lead us here.”

              “Exactly how close were you to these guys, Yuuri?” Phichit asked from where he was out in the hallways.  Yuuri peeked out to look at him, only for his friend to tap a picture on the wall.  Joining him, Yuuri saw that it was one of him with Yuri and Nikolai.  Yuuri hadn’t realized how much his face had thinned out in the past few years, though he’d changed very little otherwise.

              Yuri, on the other hand, was at least half a foot taller.  Nikolai had sent him pictures.

              “I asked once who that was,” Viktor commented.  “They were rather tight lipped on the topic, and I had forgotten all about it.”  He contemplated the picture, and then gave Yuuri a slow grin.  “You were cute.”

              Yuuri felt his cheeks heat, and he caught Phichit’s smirk.  His answering scowl just made Phichit shrug unapologetically.

              “We were close,” Yuuri said at last, choosing to ignore Viktor’s comment entirely, because it was easier that way.  He would think about it later, when he was alone and could react in the proper manner – by panicking and convincing himself that the vampire was just kidding, because obviously the most beautiful man in the world would never think that Katsuki Yuuri, all around hot mess, was actually cute.  “We _are_ close.  And that will let me find them.”

              “We told you that we’ve had others try tracking spells,” Viktor reminded him.  “It will not be so simple.”

              “And you said that I’m… unique, right?” He didn’t want to call himself _special_ , because special seemed too… _big_.  But he could handle unique.  Unique just meant he was a little weird.  Yuuri was used to being a little weird.  “Well, this spell is unique, too.  For Yuri.  It will be harder to block.”

              Because Rune Mages would have read the books and recreated the blocking Runes and circles from them perfectly.  That was how Rune Mages worked.

              But the Rune circle on Yuri’s necklace wouldn’t match up perfectly to those spells.  And hopefully Yuuri would be able to live up to everyone’s expectations of how spe – _unique_ he was, and he’d be able to break through whatever blocks there were and find the Plisetskys.

              And then he’d be free to panic about how Viktor followed him out of the apartment, just a little bit too close, so their arms brushed against each other as they headed for the elevator.  He swore he felt sparks when their skin brushed, and he felt kind of like a childish idiot, because hands touching and sparks flying weren’t actually a thing outside of YA romance novels. 

              Yuuri had read one or two of them… okay, more like a hundred.  They were an addiction, and Phichit was happy to feed it – after all, all the books meant that Yuuri suddenly had _possessions_ , and that made it harder to leave a place.  Tricky elemental mage.

              He continued to internally panic, and externally take on the approximate color of a ripe tomato, the entire drive back to Yakov’s mansion.

              “You know Yuuri,” Viktor murmured, when they exited the car, his fingers coming up to run along one of Yuuri’s cheeks.  “A vampire can only take so much temptation before they break… are you trying to break me?”

              Yuuri couldn’t respond, because Viktor’s eyes were dark and hungry – a predator’s eyes – and the sight made his throat tighten with what should have been fear. And maybe there was some of that – _fear_ – but his first instinct wasn’t to flee the vampire.

              _He wanted him_.  And that was spectacularly stupid for so many reasons.

              “If you’re going to try and get him to let you nibble on his neck or something, could it wait until _after_ we found the missing shifters?” Phichit piped up, his tone and expression entirely too amused.  Yuuri’s glare had absolutely no effect, except to make the younger man smirk.  “Spells like the one I’m pretty Yuuri’s going to have to use take a lot of magical energy.  He’ll need all his blood to do it.”

              “I thought it would be simple, if Yurochka has the necklace?” Viktor said, his brow furrowing and… did he look worried?  It must be for the Plisetskys, Yuuri decided.  He’d probably be worried, too, if the survival of a coven member depended on someone whose magic he’d only heard of, not actually witnessed.

              “Magic is never _simple_ ,” Yuuri replied, echoing words that his mother had told him countless times in his childhood.  “It’s just varying degrees of possible.  I’ll need a room with a smooth floor and some chalk.  This spell will work best if it’s done in the traditional fashion.”

              Yakov, as it turned out, had a multiple car garage with a cement floor.  Viktor and Georgi had to move several of the cars it held out onto the driveway, but when they were done it left the perfect surface for a magic circle.

              Weirdly enough, it took them longer to find chalk, and in the end Yakov had to send someone out to pick some up.  Yuuri wanted to heave a sigh when he was faced with a box of multicolored Crayola sidewalk chalk, and Phichit actually sniggered… but chalk was chalk, even if this meant his circle was going to be fluorescent green.

              “There is a white piece in there,” Georgi pointed out, when Yuuri tossed the box to the side to begin drawing his circle.  Yuuri didn’t deign to respond, leaving explanations up to Phichit.

              “He lost a bet with Leo.  He only gets to use white chalk when there are no other options.  I think you should have gone with pink.  Or look, there’s blue.  Blue is your favorite color.”

              The particular shade of blue in question was entirely too close to the color of Viktor’s eyes, which would make it distracting, but Yuuri wasn’t about to admit that.  So he pretended that he hadn’t heard his friend at all, until Phichit tried to physically remove the chalk from his hand to replace it with a different color.

              Yuuri slapped his hands and glared at him.

              “I like this green!” he declared stubbornly, even though he didn’t really.  Yuuri wasn’t a huge green fan in general.  “It’s soothing.”

              Also a lie.  Fluorescent green was never soothing, and Yuuri was pretty sure this particular chalk had to be glow in the dark to reach the particular shade.  A quick glance at the box said that yes, it was indeed, and Yuuri had to wonder if they had let a five year old pick it out.

              He made sure not to smudge what he had already drawn by keeping to the outside of the circle.   He drew it large, so that by the time he finished, he was covered in a fine sheen of sweat.  He swiped the back of his hand over his forehead and handed the chalk back to Phichit.

              “It’s an amplification circle,” Viktor commented, joining Yuuri at the edge of the circle to look down at it.  “I think, anyways.  There’s something…”

              He trailed off, his brow furrowed, and Georgi looked at the circle as well, as if trying to see whatever it was that troubled Viktor.

              “Is it… off?” Georgi finally asked.  “It’s just… it does not look quite like the amplification circles I’ve seen before.”

              “Isn’t that the entire point?” Yuuri replied somewhat wryly, because _off_ had been the exact word used to describe his circles, when he had failed the test to become a Master.  “Think it will be enough?”

              That was addressed to Phichit, who rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

              “You’re the Rune Mage,” he said at last.  “Is it enough?”

              Yuuri hoped it would be, because he didn’t know how to make the amplification circle any stronger.  He stepped into the center, and then sat cross legged, careful not to smudge anything as he did so.  This was why his tattoos had become so popular; ink pressed permanently into skin didn’t smudge if you moved too quickly. 

              “What is he doing?” he heard Georgi hiss, before he began to even out his breathing.  Deep inhales, slow exhales, and he fed his magic into the amplification circle, letting it return to him stronger… stronger… until he thought he had enough, and then he reached out.

              The rune circle had been made specifically for Yuri.  If anyone else held it, it wouldn’t work. 

              Yuri had it, Yuuri could feel that within seconds; and then he hit a wall. 

              “Dammit,” he muttered, shoving his magic against that wall.  It held underneath his shove, and he finally pulled back his magic and opened his eyes.  He looked around, eyes a little wild, before they landed on Phichit.  “I need more power.”

              Phichit bit his lip.

              “I’d let you use mine, but we both know our magic doesn’t always work well together.”

              Because Phichit’s powers were very much physical, acting upon the elements themselves, while Yuuri’s… was different.

              “What kind of power do you need?” Viktor interjected.  Both mages looked at him blankly for a moment, and Yuuri realized he had almost forgotten that they were being observed by vampires.  “Magic is what keeps us alive, after-”

              “You’ll work,” Yuuri cut him off, immediately seeing what he was getting at.  Like Yuuri’s magic, the power that kept a vampire alive wasn’t necessarily physical.  It should, in theory, work much more smoothly with his own.  “Sit across from me.  Don’t smudge the chalk.”

              Viktor did as commanded, moving with entirely too much grace, and for a moment Yuuri was broken free of the tunnel vision he always fell into when performing a spell – just long enough so he could admire how Viktor moved.  But then his magic returned to him again from the circle, bringing him back to the magic, and he was once more consumed. 

              He looked around for a moment, wondering how he could draw on Viktor to create a bind.  Ultimately, he pulled the army knife out of his pocket that Mari had given to him for his eighteenth birthday, saying everyone needed a knife.  He ignored the sounds around him and dug the blade into his palm.

              “Yuuri-” Viktor began, only to cut off with a hiss when Yuuri grabbed his hand, and began to draw a simple rune circle on the back of it in his own blood.  He narrowed his eyes, focusing on creating the bind just right.

              Once it was done, he went back to his breathing, keeping Viktor’s hand clutched between his own.  At first, the vampire was tense, but he slowly began to relax as Yuuri fell back into his breathing.

              Then, Yuuri pressed his thumb to the bloody rune circle on Viktor’s hand, and he swore the world around him rushed as he tugged on the power the kept Viktor alive, adding it to his own as he reached once more for that wall that stood between him and Yuri’s location.

              He could see now, that this wall wasn’t created by just one mage.  No, there were several different magics within it, and he suddenly understood how it stood under his onslaught.  But Yuuri’s magic circles defied the strict rules under which other Rune Mages worked, and with Viktor’s added power dismantling the wall was as easy as taking a breath.

              On the other side, was Yuri and _pain_.

              So much pain.

              They were hurting the shifter, and rage rode through Yuuri.  But he couldn’t let that rage take him over.  Not yet.  Not until Yuri and Nikolai had been returned.

              His eyes snapped open, and he released his grip on Viktor’s hand.  The vampire swayed where he saw for a moment, and caught himself with a hand before he could topple over.  Yuuri struggled to his feet, no longer caring about smearing the chalk circle, and Phichit caught him, and held him.

              “Map of the city,” Yuuri croaked out, his head pounding. 

              In a matter of seconds, a there was a table and a map, and Yuuri moved more on instinct than knowledge as he smoothed his hands over the map until he could mark with certainty the building where Yuri was being held.

              “They’re torturing him,” Yuuri said, his voice still hoarse.  “He’s hurt.”

              “We’ll save him.  Yurochka is strong.  He will be okay.”  It was Yakov who spoke, and Yuuri felt himself calm at the words.  The older man was right.  Yuri was strong; he would be pissed off about this, but he wouldn’t let it break him.

              And Yakov would make sure they got him, and Nikolai, out safely.

              No longer running on the adrenaline of having Yuri’s location, Yuuri felt himself begin to sway on his feet, his knees shaking.  A hand caught his elbow before he could topple to his knees, and he knew before he even looked up that it was Viktor.  His normally blue eyes had turned almost black, and Yuuri could actually see hints of his fangs, the fangs that all of the vampires did such a good job of keeping politely hidden, as though by doing so they could help the world forget they were its greatest predators. 

              Yuuri stared at him for a moment, and then remembered that he had drawn a magic circle on Viktor’s hand.

              In his own blood.

              As a reminder, his palm stung as Yuuri clenched his hand into a fist, and he knew his face must be turning a remarkable shade of red.  What the hell had he been thinking?

              Then again, when he got into a magical fugue, Yuuri didn’t really think beyond the spell.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.  “I… we should get the blood cleaned off and-”

He cut himself off when Viktor continued to just stare at him, nothing about him seeming quite human anymore.  Yuuri swallowed heavily as he realized he was being faced with a true predator. But he wasn’t afraid.

              He didn’t think he had ever seen anything more beautiful than Viktor in all his preternatural glory.

              The thrum of magic was still high in his veins.  It always was, after he borrowed power – as if the magic couldn’t all fit into his body, and needed some other outlet.  He always felt twitchy and shaky until the magic wore away.

              Or he found that outlet.

              “I’m sorry,” he blurted out again, but this time it wasn’t for the bloody magic circle.

              He grabbed the back of Viktor’s head and pulled it down, so he could seal their lips together.  For a moment, Viktor remained still and Yuuri thought that he was such an idiotic fool.

              Then Viktor kissed back.

              It was hardly Yuuri’s first kiss, but it _was_ the first time he had kissed a vampire… and he didn’t know if it his species, or just Viktor himself, but the way the man kissed was downright lethal.  And possessive.

              It was like he was branding Yuuri, with his lips and the hands that ran along his sides, and it left Yuuri breathless and feeling owned. 

              Both of them had forgotten they were alone, until Yuuri became vaguely aware of an angry voice.  He still didn’t end the kiss, though – it was Viktor, who pulled away, and then held Yuuri close to his body as he looked at the owner of that angry voice over his head.

              “Vitya, we don’t have time for this!”  It took longer than it should have, for Yuuri to realize that was Yakov’s voice.  And then his next words were like a splash of ice water.  “The Plisetskys need us.”

              The reminder made Yuuri pull away from, Viktor straightening his clothes and trying to calm his racing heart and his ridiculously red face.  He tongue ran along his lips quickly, and he could still taste Viktor there.  It made his heart skip a beat.

              “This isn’t done yet,” Viktor’s voice was a warm rumble against his ear that made Yuuri gulp.  “Once we have Yuri and his grandfather back… well.  This isn’t over.”

              They were a warm promise, and Yuuri said nothing in response, because there was nothing he _could_ say. He didn’t want it to be over… but this wasn’t his coven.

              And he was only supposed to be there to save the boy and man that had briefly given him a home.

\---

              Viktor quickly washed Yuuri’s blood off the back of his hand, determinedly _not_ running his tongue along it like he wanted. 

              He knew he must look pathetic as he watched the red tinted water rush down the drain, taking with it the blood that had to taste as sweet as it smelled.  And it smelled spectacular. 

              It had taken all of his considerable self-restraint not to run his fang along Yuuri’s tongue during that kiss, to not take just a taste of the blood that he wanted so badly he almost shook with desire.

              Or maybe it was just desire for Yuuri in general that made him shake.

              “Let’s go,” he said as he rejoined the group.  He was in a separate group from Yuuri, and even as part of him raged at that, he knew that it was for the best.  Besides, Viktor was one of those going in first; the Rune Mage was there for support, should they come up against the Master that had almost kept them from finding Yuri’s location.

              The vampires were all familiar with the warehouse district, and it was the most cliché place to keep prisoners.  But it was also so bloated with buildings and scents that it was a tried and true location… Yakov had considered sending in a team to scour for the Plisetskys, but they had all known it would take a major miracle for anything of use to be found.

              In the warehouse district, you had to know exactly where what you were looking for was.  Now, thanks to Yuuri, they did.

              “Are you going to be okay?” asked Mila, a quick and lithe shifter who could sneak into any building, and past any spell.  She said it was a family trick – Viktor suspected it just had to do with the type of Shifter she was, something she held close to her chest.  When anyone asked her, she just gave a mysterious smile.  “You were a little… off kilter.”

              In other words, no one had ever seen Viktor act with anything other than cool-headed determination or wry amusement, and so the way he had kissed Yuuri so possessively had left them all a little off balance.

              Viktor most of all.

              “We have a job to do,” was all he said.  He had a rifle strapped to his back, and a slim bladed sword at his side.  Viktor enjoyed embracing both the past and the present, and it had made him more adaptable than some of the other vampires.  “Get us in there, Mila.”

              Mila gave him a quick salute and rushed forward.  In the seconds it took the rest of them to take up their positions, she had scaled the wall of the warehouse and entered a higher window.  Viktor caught sight of one of Yakov’s mages, settled into a magic circle and keeping them hidden from view of anyone not in their coven. 

              Viktor listened, and heard a muffled thump – Mila taking out guards? It must have been, because about five minutes later, the door opened and she motioned them in with a flourish.

              “You are a gift, Mila,” Viktor murmured to her, and the red head grinned in pleasure.  He motioned over his shoulder, and the other vampires fell in with him. 

              “Third floor,” Mila murmured low.  “I smelled them.  There was blood as well.”

              Viktor knew his eyes must be dark as he bared his fangs.  Yuuri had given the heads up that Yuri was in pain, but that didn’t lessen the anger Viktor felt at having further proof. 

              Whoever was behind this was going to die.

\---

              Yuri hurt everywhere. 

              He had fallen into blissful darkness after yet another “chat” with his captors, but found his body being manhandled.  He was barely aware as his head lolled to the side, something hard and cold pressed to his throat.

              “If you harm us, old man, you’ll kill the boy.”

              _Old man?_

_Viktor?_

Yuri always called Viktor “Old Man” because of that stupid hair of his… but what would he be doing there?  He didn’t know where they were.

              If he did, they would have been saved.

              _Grandpa_.

              That thought made him try to awaken further, but Yuri couldn’t.  He was too hurt, and too weak, and he _hated_ it.

              Something was growling.

              Was he growling?

              Was Grandpa?

              Yuri tried to grab at one of the hands that held him, his claws slicing out, but they were pushed back down entirely too easily.

              “Leave him be!” he heard his grandpa’s familiar voice growl, and Yuri wanted to go to him.  But that knife was still at his throat.

              “Sit down old-”

              There was a loud bang, and Yuri must have blacked out again, because the next thing he knew he was looking up from where he had sprawled on the ground, and had no idea how he had gotten then.

              “Oh, Yurochka,” murmured that familiar voice, and Yuri found himself breathing in the scent of _grandpa_. It felt as though his arms weighed a ton, but he managed to lift them, to wrap them around his grandpa.

              A click sounded above them, and Yuri’s head tilted up, to see the barrel of a gun pointed at them.

              “I will kill them,” the captor declared.

              A step sounded, and Yuri slowly became aware of the familiar scents in the room.  Viktor, and Mila… and Chris and Georgi he was pretty sure.

              They were so close to being saved, except for that gun.  There was the flash of a magic circle, and their coven mates couldn’t come any closer.

              “Rune Mage,” Yuri tried to say, but he couldn’t tell if the words actually came out.

              This captor was a rune mage.  Yuri didn’t realize there were circles that could cause pain, but this mage had.

              “I will take the boy and leave.  Or I can kill them both,” the captor continued, only to suddenly stop, clutching at his throat. 

              Yuri’s chest felt warm.  He touched it, and realized it was the necklace from Yuuri.

              And that’s when he scented him.

              “Yuuri,” he whispered, seeing the Japanese man enter the room.  Yuuri stepped into the magic circle as though it weren’t even there, looking down at the captor with cold eyes.  The man continued to claw at his throat, until Yuuri knelt down. 

              There was the hot scent of iron, and then the man stopped moving, and when Yuuri stood, Yuri could just make out what looked like a bloodied circle drawn on his forehead.  Then Yuuri looked back to Yuri, and that coldness was gone.

              It was a relief.  Cold didn’t suit Katsudon.

              “Hey,” Yuuri said.

              Yuri tried to greet him in return, but darkness came again.

              And then he drifted once more.

\---

              “The boy is strong.  He’ll be fine.”

              Yuuri jolted at Yakov’s voice.  He had been sitting in a seat next to Yuri’s bedside, nodding off, and hadn’t heard the older man enter.  Fully awake, he sat straight and tried to tame the hair that felt kind of crazy.

              “It was my fault,” Yuuri croaked as Yakov came to take the seat next to him.  “That man… Cao Bin.  He tried to get me to join his coven.  He – there were others, that refused to take no for an answer.  He seemed completely okay with it, though.  I never heard from him again.”

              Nikolai had explained, that the other Rune Mage had taken them, knowing that they might have information on Yuuri himself.  The elderly man had given him a sharp eyed look and told him that he was, under no circumstance, to blame himself.  Cao Bin was responsible for his own actions.

              Yuuri wished it were so simple.

              “I’m sorry,” he added, glancing at Yakov.  “This trouble came to you because of me.”

              “You said yourself – Cao Bin offered, you declined.  That is no excuse for torture, and no excuse for blaming yourself.  No one likes a martyr, Yura.”

              Yuuri gave a mirthless snort of laughter, and ran a hand through his hair. 

              “My Vitya,” Yakov continued after a long silence.  “He’s been moping around.  Every time the door to this room opens, he’s there perking up like a puppy.  Did you know he’s one of the deadliest vampires I have in my coven?  You wouldn’t know it, with how he’s acting.”

              “I barely know him,” Yuuri said softly, his hands clasped as he watched Yuri’s sleeping face.  He was almost completely healed, thanks to his shifter nature and Yuuri’s own magic.  He should wake any time now.  “It doesn’t make any sense how I… this whole… I barely know him.”

              “Yet he’s moping like a child,” Yakov said again.  “And you are rotting away in here.  I will sit with the boy – you should put poor Vitya out of his misery.  Let him actually perk up when he sees who leaves the room.”  

              Yuuri didn’t immediately agree.  It was sort of relaxing, sitting with Yakov in companionable silence.  But finally, he stood up, gave the vampire a nod, and then exited Yuri’s room.

              Viktor was at his side almost immediately.

              Yuuri considered him for a moment, tilting his head as he contemplated the other man.  Viktor met his gaze, first with an eager smile, and then with a raised brow and a question in his eyes.

              “Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?” Yuuri finally asked.  Viktor looked taken aback.

              “I… the ink doesn’t tend to last with vampires.”

              “It does if you make it right.”

              They stood there and just looked at each other – Yuuri wasn’t sure what he was doing, exactly.  Was he challenging Viktor?  Making him an offer?

              Did he just want to leave his mark on Viktor’s skin, a mark that would remain there permanently, even once he had gone back to Detroit?

              “Then yes.  I’ve thought about it. And would like one.”

              It was suspiciously easy to get the equipment he needed, and Yuuri wondered if Yakov had a secret plot to lure him to Russia permanently, or if he had just made it clear that Yuuri was to have whatever he wanted.  In the end, it probably worked out to the same thing. 

              “What are you getting?” Chris asked curiously, once they had set Yuuri in a quiet office.

              “I don’t know,” Viktor replied.

              “Where are you getting it?” asked Mila, who had followed them when she had realized what was happening, curious about the process.

              “I don’t know,” Viktor said again, as Yuuri turned towards him with cleansing wipe in hand.  “I don’t suppose you would like to answer the inquisition?”

              “Shirt off,” Yuuri replied.  Viktor did as ordered, and maybe Yuuri hadn’t thought this through fully.  Because shirt off meant _shirt off_ , and Viktor had a rather spectacular eight pack that made Yuuri stop and stare at first.  It took a choked giggle from Mila for Yuuri to realize what he had done, and he wondered if it was possible to turn red permanently. 

              It was a relief, to step behind Viktor so that the vampire couldn’t watch him with that impossibly pleased grin, clearly happy with the responses he’d had.  Yuuri wiped the skin of shoulder clean, and then grabbed the stencil that he had created.

              “What is it?” Mila asked, trying to take a peek.  Yuuri put his body between his work and any prying eyes.

              Viktor held remarkably still through the process, and Yuuri wondered if that was a Viktor thing, or a vampire thing. 

              It definitely made Yuuri’s job easy.

              The work passed in relative silence, and Yuuri got the sense that wasn’t entirely usual for Viktor.  Chris and Mila would talk to him briefly, but they were in and out of the room, realizing they wouldn’t be seeing what the tattoo was until Yuuri was done, and the process of watching someone else get ink wasn’t exactly the most interesting.

              “Can you tell me what it is I’m getting?” Viktor asked at about the halfway point.

              “Runes,” Yuuri replied.

              “I’m aware of that, Yuuri… but what will they _do_?”

              Yuuri didn’t say anything at first, as he switched out black ink for a blue that matched Viktor’s eyes.  The entire design was an intricate snowflake, with the runes worked throughout.

              “I’m going to be going back to Detroit,” he said at last.  “Once Yuri is up and about.  Phichit is already itching to return, and I know that Celestino is pestering him.”

              “Surely you get vacation,” Viktor said after a long pause, his words slow and carefully chosen.  “I told you we weren’t done.  We can’t continue if you’re a world away.”

              “I’m a member of the Detroit coven, Viktor,” Yuuri said after a moment.  “I take my promises seriously.  And I can’t leave them for a man I’ve known for all of forty-eight hours, even if they are great kissers.”

              “Just great?”

              Yuuri shrugged.

              “A great first kiss is pretty good.  Practice makes perfect.”

              “Another thing we cannot do if you’re in Detroit?”

              Yuuri hummed and finished the fine details, removing the stencil and eyeing the finished product.

              “It’s done,” he said at last, a pleased grin curving his lips.

              Using mirrors, he helped Viktor to see what had been inked onto him.  At first, Viktor’s expression was flat, but finally – _finally_ – his lips curved into a ridiculous smile that he aimed directly at Yuuri.

              “I love it!” he declared.  “But what does it do?”

              Yuuri hesitated for a moment, and then let his magic flick out.

              He ran a finger down his own arm, and Viktor shivered in response.  For a moment, the vampire froze, and then interest lit his eyes.

              “Does it work both ways?” he demanded immediately.

              “Push power into it.  See.”

              Viktor did, and the thumb he pressed to his lips felt as though it were touching Yuuri’s.  He swallowed in response, and Viktor slow, seductive grin made Yuuri’s fingers itch to touch him.

              Apparently Viktor had the same itch, because he cradled Yuuri’s cheeks and pressed his lips to his in a searing kiss.

              “That will be fun,” Viktor murmured against his skin, as he kissed down Yuuri’s jaw, to his neck.  “But I think as long as you’re in front of me, I prefer to actually touch you.”

              “I’m okay with that,” Yuuri said after a moment.

              He didn’t know Viktor.  He had been perfectly serious when he had told Yakov that.  But he wanted to.

              And maybe this would help with that.

\---

              “I’m going to get a tattoo from you as soon as I’m eighteen,” Yuri said to him, as they stood outside the airport security.  Yuuri should get in line, but he wasn’t ready quite yet.  “Grandpa can’t complain once I’m eighteen.”

              “Your grandfather just doesn’t want you to be spoiled, that’s why he said no,” Yuuri replied with a quick grin.

              “Yeah, well… we were lucky.  They could have taken the necklace.” Yuri clutched it, as though it were a lifeline.  “They can’t do that with a tattoo.”

              True, but if Yuri came to him for a tattoo it wouldn’t be Runes for finding that Yuuri gave him.  It would be something new and unique that would serve a tiger shifter well.

              What it was exactly hadn’t come to Yuuri yet, but it would.  Just like Viktor’s had.

              After all, Yuuri and his magic were special… and yeah, Yuuri had decided he might as well own that.  Ignoring it hadn’t kept the Plisetskys safe, after all.

              “He’s so gross,” Yuri muttered, and Yuuri frowned at him, and then followed the shifters gaze to see that Viktor was approaching them.  “You’re both gross.  Ugh.”

              “So this is it,” Viktor said, coming to a halt an arm’s length away from Yuuri, the space seeming impossibly wider somehow.  “The offer is still open.  You could stay.”

              “Pathetic,” Yuri grumbled.  But he nudged Yuuri’s shoulder with his own and then left, giving the two of them as much privacy as could be given in an airport.  Phichit had joined the security line up, clearly intending the same.

              “Not yet,” Yuuri said.  “But… someday.  Maybe. If you can convince me.”

              Viktor’s answering grin was a wicked smirk, and then he was kissing Yuuri as though they were both drowning men, and the kisses the only form of water available.

              Yuuri returned it eagerly.

              “Think about me, Yuuri,” Viktor murmured when they broke apart, their noses still brushing.  “I’ll think of you.”

              Yuuri watched Viktor as he retreated, swaying a little on his feet.  After a good-bye kiss like that, there was no way he _wouldn’t_ be thinking of the vampire.

              “I almost thought you were going to stay,” Phichit admitted as Yuuri joined him, but Yuuri shook his head.

              “I have a shop,” he reminded his friend.  “It’s finally making money.”

              And before he crossed the world for a vampire, he kind of wanted to date him first. Admittedly, between Skype calls and the tattoo, this version of dating might kill them both… but it would be a nice death, all things considered.

              Yuuri ran a hand through his hair as they approached security.

              Driving away from the airport, Viktor shivered, feeling the ghosting of fingernails against his scalp.


End file.
